by early 2002, the taliban had been routed. some people forget nowadays that during the course of the iraq war they would refer back to afghanistan and say now that's how you fight in a foreign country like afghanistan. you let patriots who know the country, know the terrain, know the tactics of our enemy, let them fight them. we gave them arms. we gave them aerial support, and they defeated the taliban for us. then, as our northern alliance allies told me and dana rohrabacher -- steve king was there for the first meeting -- they told us, look, after we defeated the taliban for you, then you tell us we got to turn back in the arms that gave us the ability to defeat the taliban because you told us, look, we're the united states. now that the taliban's been defeated, we got you covered. there won't be any more problems. we're in charge. and we added tens of thousands of people to afghanistan and became occupiers in afghanistan . and, again, those who know history -- and i do mean distant and more recent history -- you know, occup